The Ending We Wrote
by Slinky-and-the-BloodyWands
Summary: "It's not a bite," Cas assures. Dean knows. He cares about Cas too much; he would have shot first if he'd seen teeth on skin. But a bite isn't the only thing that kills. Getting stuck in the gut with rebar while scurrying away from undead cannibals will do the job just fine. One-shot, non-Endverse post-apocalypse, Cas/Dean.


**PROMPT:** Written for the Livejournal community Zombification's Zombie Fest 2014. Prompt 217. "Supernatural - Dean/Cas, Sam, Jody (Sam/Jody if you like), any others - It's 2014. Lucifer isn't a threat anymore, but that doesn't mean that future that Dean saw in The End won't come to pass."

**SPOILERS**: Setting is post season 9, so there are several mentions of spoilers from this last season.

**A/N:** I should also mention that the timetable might be slightly off, depending on your interpretation of the dates in SPN. And oh my Godstiel, I actually wrote something with tiny bits of Destiel. Is this a first for me? Also, this is a one-shot. As fun as it would be to write more for this 'verse...well, you've seen my WIP list, right?

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_The Ending We Wrote_

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Dean doesn't notice the world's burning until his boots are melting to the floor.

No. Not melting, but sticking. The blood is thick and rotted and deep enough that the soles of his shoes _suck_ and _glomp_ as he moves. It's old, decayed, and crusted with mold, but, most importantly, it shouldn't be here. This whole shopping plaza was boarded up by owners who'd expected looters during the first days of the plague. They'd been right to prepare, but they would have been better off boarding themselves inside. There hadn't been enough time for looting.

Which means this place should be clean, like his scouts said. It shouldn't be covered in blood that looks black in the white glow of their lantern. This much blood and no bodies, if he isn't counting the chunks. And he isn't. Spare parts won't try to rip his throat out; walking corpses will.

This is not a good sign. It means they are not the first raiding party here. But Dean's damned determined that they'll be the first ones to _leave_ here.

"Cas, keep pressure on it," Dean barks, fingers gripping the other man's jacket as he tugs him along, and it's everything he can do not to let go and cover his nose. His other hand is busy keeping his handgun leveled on the store's back door. "How deep is it?"

Cas sighs. He's trying for annoyance but the pain comes through crystal clear, and Dean thinks it's a miracle the guy is still holding the lantern up.

"It's not a bite," Cas assures.

Dean knows. He cares about Cas too much; he would have shot first if he'd seen teeth on skin. But a bite isn't the only thing that kills. Getting stuck in the gut with rebar while scurrying away from undead cannibals will do the job just fine.

"Son of a bitch." One look at his surroundings leaves Dean frustrated. He was hoping the door he'd shoved through lead to, well, somewhere with supplies. Instead, he sees tall, clear plastic bins, scoops hanging from their tops. They're still full of candy, melted, and the jelly whatever-the-fucks look like someone vomited confetti.

What a touch of god-damned irony. Every single treat in this store was probably tainted once upon a time by the Levi syrup. But all this wasted crap is likely clean. The new plague doesn't need junk food to help with its distribution.

The pop of a gun firing is dull through the walls, and distant. Distant is good, Dean tells himself. Distant means - _thud -_ the thought is interrupted by the sound of a body hitting the back door and sliding down its length. Distant, he begins again, means the ones who ambushed them are getting picked off. Dean lets out a shaky breath he hadn't realized he was holding.

"Sounds like Sam and Jody have noticed our welcoming party," Cas says.

"Won't take them long to clear the grounds if they're still on the roof. Those things can climb like friggin' tree monkeys, but, thank God, they're still stupid as shit when it comes to their attacks."

And Sam and Jody are friggin' awesome at their job. Dean doesn't have to say that part, but he's thinking it, and he's proud. Of Sam because he's still Sam, of Jody because she can kick ass with the best of them and still make Sam smile. Which is something new, and nice. Most days, just thinking of the people still at his sides is enough to keep him moving, but not today. Today, Dean's brain is headed to traitorous territory.

"Thank God," Cas echoes, with a touch of sarcasm he wouldn't have been capable of a few years ago. The comment makes Dean flinch. Reminds him of something, about the world burning, about the end of things.

Dean slips his arm around Cas' back, helping him over the slight step up into the employee area behind the register. There's a back room, and if it's like some of the other stores, it connects to its neighbor by a hallway. But they didn't have a chance to check the area as they ran in. Dean keeps that in mind as he positions them at an angle, eyes on the door they entered through and on the still-boarded front. It's a good spot if they're attacked by only one of the cannibals. If a horde floods in, they're up shit creek, but that's business as usual. Always has been, always will be.

"Dean?"

Dean startles at the sound of Cas' voice. He doesn't realize until then that he's taken to one knee, staring at the puddle of blood like something is going to rise up out of it.

"It happened, Cas."

Castiel is quiet a moment, and their breathing is tremendously loud. Dean remembers a time when he barely ever noticed Cas was even in the room, he was so quiet. But he's not anymore. He sneezes when the sun's in his face, and he walks like he has cement in his boots, and he rolls in his sleep, making their battered mattress groan and squeak all night. Cas is human, and humans are never really quiet until they're dead. And if they're still not quiet at that point, they're no longer human.

Dean makes to clear his throat, remembers they're hiding, and feels as if he's choking for a minute, because it hits him all at once, a sense of deja vu. The truth is always there, in the back of his mind. It surfaces at times, and he pushes it back down, but right now he's fucking choking on it.

He's been here before. He's been in this time before.

It's 2014, about to be 2015, and he's seen all of this happen before. All he and Sam have sacrificed, and it still ends. The world still ends.

Lucifer isn't here this time around, and that's not a demon virus making the dead walk. It's a monster virus. Fucking Leviathan.

It wasn't even that long ago, when he cut the head off the snake, but apparently one of the tails was still running a lab outside Detroit, under the hunter's radar. Dean tells himself that if he wasn't in Purgatory, then so wrapped up in the angel war and demon political bullshit afterward, he might have noticed the reports earlier. But no one really noticed, not hunters nor civilians, not until a Levi drove a truck up to a high school and unleashed a dozen crazed cannibals, the 2.0 turducken-free version, onto the campus.

Even then. If that had been the end of it, it would have been a tragedy, but not the end of the world. But fucking science and monster hoodoo shit just made for a lethal combination. Dean isn't sure if the Leviathan who did it realized what the cannibal's bite would do to a human. Dumbass killed off its food supply in one fell swoop, but that was probably its intent. One last vengeful hurrah.

At the time, Dean was too busy howling at the moon to even care.

"It's not the same, Dean."

Dean blinks, wondering if any of his thoughts accidentally left his mouth. He ignores Cas' comment completely and decides it's time to face the music. He puts down his gun and goes to work, tearing open the other man's shirt. The dull light makes it hard to see the details at first, and a part of him almost panics when he notices the giant red smear over Cas' entire torso.

He takes a calming breath and prods at the wound, hoping nothing is showing on his face. Things slip out easier these days, emotions, words, expressions. Ever since the cure, it's harder to mask them. Which is damned funny when he thinks about it, because it means he's more human now that he was before he died, either time. Maybe more human that he's been since he was a kid.

He's pulling his first aid kit apart before he's even aware that it's in his hands, and after he puts some pressure on the wound, he gives it a good look. It's nasty and deeper than he'd like, but the blood isn't rushing out. It doesn't mean they're in the clear, but it does mean there's more time. A few inches to the right, a few inches higher or lower, and...

Dean can't complete that thought.

Fingers wrap around his, keeping him from his work. Cas holds his hand a moment, a soft, if pained, grin on his face. He lifts Dean's hand up, tenderly brushing his lips against the man's knuckles, then lowers it again. He doesn't let go. Dean wants to lean forward, rest his head on Cas' shoulder, but this isn't the time or place, and they don't allow themselves those sorts of comforts often.

"It's not the same, Dean."

This time Dean listens, because those blue eyes staring at him are as steady and unblinking as they ever were with grace lighting them.

"You forget that you told me what happened, when you saw a version of your future, but Dean, this isn't the world you described."

Dean shakes his head. "Dude, I think you missed the part where you were almost eaten a few minutes ago while trying to raid a store for supplies. Doesn't matter if we're living a Romero movie or a cheap knockoff, we're still in the same genre."

Cas is smiling, like there's a joke in there, and Dean thinks maybe it's just because he gets the reference. "It's not the same, Dean. In that world, Sam was gone, and I...You let me go, too. But what's truly different between that world and this one is you, Dean."

Dean shakes his head. "Not so much, Cas."

"Who would it need to be?"

"What?"

Cas raises a brow. "Who would it need to be? Which one of our enemies would it need to be? If you were given the chance, a plan you thought would work, a way to defeat them...would you kill me to do it? I'm not your brother. I've even been your enemy before. So it would make sense... Would you sacrifice me to kill Metatron, or Abbadon? What if Crowley brought an army up from Hell? What if Lucifer and Michael were set loose on the world again?"

"Cas, I can't." Dean doesn't know how to answer, because he knows what his answer would have been five years ago. A year ago. Maybe two months ago. He isn't sure when his flip switched, if it was when he was given back his humanity or the last time Sam laughed at his joke around the campfire or the first time he fell asleep with Cas' arms around him. But at some point, Dean realizes, the hunt, the kill, it all became less important than holding together his little family.

It's the stupid choice, really. He knows there's some 'greater good' speech gnawing at the back of his head. But at his core, he's always wanted to make the right sacrifice for the right people. The stupid choice. To sell his soul for Sam. To give up his life for his family. To crush his moral compass for just a little longer with the people he loves. And he's not going to fight that instinct anymore. To Hell with that future. He's done with it.

"I'd let the world burn first," Dean says, finally. And there's some sort of goofy relief that floods him when he realizes it's true.

Cas smiles. "Then you may be an idiot, but you're certainly not the man you saw in that version of the future."

Dean grins back and takes the distraction as chance to tighten the bandage around Cas' middle. It's not as bad as he thought, the wound. It'll heal with time and care.

The gunfire comes to a stop outside, as does the sound of movement. The dread that follows Dean into the quiet, it isn't there anymore. He knows Sam and Jody are finishing up the job, and he can almost picture Sam giving Jody a gentlemanly hand as she steps off the ladder, as if they hadn't just blown off a half-dozen undead skulls. He knows Cas is going to survive and that, tonight, he's going to make the ex-angel sleep flat on his back so that he doesn't pull at his stitches. Dean knows because it's finally occurred to that he's written his own story already, and this isn't the end. Not by a long shot.


End file.
